Tonight's Poet Corner: Give Me A Break

Give Me A Break
by Belinda Roddie

My head is a fucking whirlwind,
all dust and dirt and shrapnel,
the debris of a past life swirling fast
and getting hotter and hotter with time.

The seas are bubbling over, the cauldron
thick with brew. All artificial,
too. And it clogs my every pore,
and it makes it too difficult to think,
or smile, or laugh, or breathe. And I'm
absolutely tired of it.

Let me live a life without fear. Let me
straddle the South Pole as the ice
collapses without another
panic attack. This, I swear, I wish for:
a day in which I do not pace,
or fret, or steam, or sweat, or scream
inwardly for a minute of calm. While

the missiles are at the ready. While the
dollar becomes just paper. While paper
burns the nearest forest down. While I cling
to what I believe is little hope and watch
my last bit of sanity be stripped from me
like the last of the gold from a sunset -
dripping fear, icing anxiety to my brow
while the temperature is rising, and I want
my fever, growing with it,
to just finally fucking break.